You may have noticed that I’ve been slowing down a bit lately when it comes to sharing projects here on the blog.  That’s because I’ve been focused on something else.  Swedish death cleaning.

Let me explain.  First off, if you haven’t heard of Swedish death cleaning, the most basic description is that it’s the process of getting rid of stuff that you no longer need/use, and that no one in your family is going to want after you die.  The idea is to save your family from having to clear out a lifetime of stuff once you’re gone.

I haven’t actually read the book, or seen the TV series, so I really don’t know much about how it’s supposed to work.  But for me, I just realized that our house was full of stuff that we no longer use and that no one (family or otherwise) is going to want when Mr. Q and I are gone.  It will be so much easier to just gradually start to go through it without having any sort of deadline.

Now, don’t worry.  This wasn’t precipitated by any kind of ill-health, nobody is going to die any time soon, but I did turn 60 on my last birthday so I can’t pretend like I’m ‘middle-aged’ anymore either.

So far I’ve gotten rid of two van loads of stuff that went to the Goodwill, a few electronics that will go to the hazardous waste facility, and one entire metal filing cabinet full of stuff.

The first thing to go was old paperwork.

That was a bit of a process since it involved looking everything over to determine what should be shredded and what could just be thrown away.  I had tax returns going back 20 years.  Those got shredded.  I also had a huge stack of various instruction manuals for appliances, and in many cases I no longer even had the appliance.  Those all got thrown.  If I need to know how to use something, I can look it up online.  I had old copies of resumes, and other work related paperwork although I’ve been retired for going on three years now.  Those got tossed as well.

Once all the paperwork was gone, I realized that the cabinet could go too.  We put it out at the curb with a ‘free’ sign on it one evening, and the next morning we woke up to find that someone had taken two of the drawers.  Argh!  What the heck?  What were we going to do with a filing cabinet that was missing two drawers?

Fortunately, the person came back later and left a note saying that they wanted the cabinet, but had to find a truck.  We offered to deliver it and were happy to see it go.

Another huge category of discarded stuff was serving dishes.  I had serving dishes of all kinds; large glass bowls, glass platters, silver-plate items.

I can’t even remember the last time we used most of them.  I kept the serving dishes that we use at Thanksgiving, and a couple of platters for bringing brownies to a pot-luck, but the rest went.

I also got rid of some barware.

We just don’t entertain like we used to.  Plus that wine opener was a duplicate, do I really need two of them?

I did hesitate for a second over those really adorable stir sticks.

Aren’t they fun?  But we’ve never actually used them.  They’ve just been gathering dust in a cupboard.  They got the ax too.

There were some items that we never use that didn’t get sent to Goodwill though.  Instead, I decided it was time to use them.

That included my ‘good’ silverware.

OK, I know, it’s a bit dated.  But maybe it’s just old enough to be called vintage?  Well, probably not.  I think it’s pretty though, and it’s a much better quality than the cheap silverware we were using every day.  So I sent the cheap silverware to the Goodwill and filled the silverware drawer with this stuff.

Not only did we donate several van-loads of goods, we also filled up our trash can for weeks.  I had a huge box of old photos that I went through and pared down.  Remember when we used to get film developed?  And you could get doubles?  I always got doubles!  And probably 85% of those photos weren’t even good ones.

I even threw away my high school year books.  I never look at them, why keep them?

I did draw the line at my scrapbooks.

Although I don’t look at them all that often, I just can’t quite bring myself to part with them.  Perhaps when I’m in my 80’s I’m going to want to go back and look through them and remember how absolutely frigid it was sailing through the Wachau Valley in November 2014.

Speaking of scrapbooks, it was time to get rid of scrapbooking supplies that I was never going to use.  I think 2014 might have been the last time that I seriously worked on a scrapbook.  I have done a handful of smaller projects since then, like the index card project from 2019 or the altered recipe box scrapbook from last year.

So I am still hanging onto some of my favorite supplies.

A goodly amount of expired jars of spices also made their way to the trash can, along with other expired items from the pantry.

My Watkins spices were still good though.

I’m definitely not done yet.  I still have quite a few cupboards and drawers to go through.  And although I cleaned out the carriage house for my sale back in June, I need to go back and do a much more thorough job out there.

That job might require a trip to the dump.  Does anyone need any antique bed side rails?  Because I have half a dozen of them in there.  When you turn beds into benches, you no longer need the side rails.

I always feel like a weight has been lifted when I get rid of stuff that is just taking up space.

That being said, I still have all of my non-collections.  I have a rule about them, I only collect things that I’m going to display and/or use on a regular basis.  So I still have my ironstone …

And I still have my vintage alarm clocks and cameras, as well as my tiny furniture.

I’m pretty sure that no one in my family is going to want any of my non-collections after I’m gone.  And technically, I don’t ‘need’ or ‘use’ these things.  So I want to add one extra caveat to the Swedish death cleaning concept.  If the items will make for an amazing estate sale, then they are also worth hanging on to 😉

Now, how about you?  Is your house full of items that will make for a spectacular estate sale?  Or are there lots of things that are just taking up space?  Leave a comment and let me know.